Irish illustrator praised for Trump art

August 23, 2017

The Economist cover depicting Donald Trump speaking through a Ku Klux Klan hood has made a Dublin illustrator renowned after it was shared 30,000 times online in 48 hours.

Jon Berkeley was commissioned by the magazine to sketch the cover, which shows the US president using the hood as a megaphone, as a reaction to his comments over the violent clashes in Charlottesville, Virginia.

The 54- year-old told The Times: “I was quite disgusted to watch Mr Trump refuse to offend the far right, and I know that many people shared those feelings with me.

“I have many American close friends and 99 per cent are horrified by the current trend that his candidacy and presidency has brought. I am generally very optimistic and I can’t help but thinking that this is just a spasm in the history of the country.”

Berkley’s Economist illustration was just one of this week’s fitting national publication covers. The New Yorker led with David Plunkert’s eye-catching ‘Blowhard’ and TIME went with Edel Rodriguez’s ‘Hate in America’.

Plunkert’s take was “President Trump’s weak pushback to hate groups—as if he was trying not to alienate them as voters compelled me to take up my pen”.

“These people are hiding behind the flag and the idea of patriotism it connotes. They have tried to change the language from ‘White Supremacist’ to ‘White Nationalist,’ to further hide behind the flag, and the idea of patriotism,” says Rodriguez, a Cuban American artist. “But they are espousing the same views as always.”

This week’s newspaper also has an interview with Irish illustrator Dermot Flynn